Jazz

Great app, truly appreciated.. Well the exclude file from being included in the iso (cdrecord options) dosent work, i put there nlite.log, but its still there in my cd, Perhaps if u do want to include that file in the installation's for some checks or whatever then it probably might be a good idea to move it to the i386 folder.. as there are thousands of files there already, a extra log file wont make any difference, but atlest the root will be clean, eh Also, as previously suggested pls ask the user of he wants the iso before it self, so that we can rest in peace lol.. umm, cant think of a anything else now, but i'll sure come up with something.. Bye, Jazz PS :- Hey its great to see so many old pals like zulu and evilvoice on this forum.. for some reference, i'm jassi from 911 forums

OFF TOPIC Hey Evil, is this you ? this is Jassi. Hi wassup !

Hmm, well will this work if there are no partitions on the hdd ? like creating the batch file on the ramdrive and use it from there or something ! And i had heard that the winnt.exe installation is much slower than the actual windows default installation method, is it true ? is it cuz of the DOS subsystem ? Well, i'll have a look at it in a very detailed manner, and then i'll post some batch files and images.. and probably a cdshell; script to do install multiple Xp-cd's with customisation and some without customisation.. BYe, Jazz

Any sureshot method for this ? Well i'm doin something for this but its not the oobe method, and i'd like to switch to oobe method.. Amywatys the method that i use is :- first i have a temp folder in ($oem$\$1) so that makes it $oem$\$1\temp, then i have these 2 files in temp folder :- 1. --> Change.vbs Option Explicit Set ws = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell") Dim ws, t, p1, p2, n, g, cn, cg Dim itemtype p1 = "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\" p2 = "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\" n = ws.RegRead(p1 & "RegisteredOwner") g = ws.RegRead(p1 & "RegisteredOrganization") t = "Change Owner and Organization Utility" cn = InputBox("Type new Owner and click OK", t, n) If cn <> "" Then ws.RegWrite p1 & "RegisteredOwner", cn ws.RegWrite p2 & "DefName", cn End If cg = InputBox("Type new Organization and click OK.", t, g) If cg <> "" Then ws.RegWrite p1 & "RegisteredOrganization", cg ws.RegWrite p2 & "DefCompany", cg End If 2. ---> register.cmd @echo off Echo. Echo. set /p username= Please Enter the Name of the Account to be created as Administrator = Echo. Echo. set /p password= Please Enter the Password of the Account to be created as Administrator = net user %username% %password% /add net localgroup Administrators %username% /add net accounts /maxpwage:unlimited ECHO. ECHO Registering Windows Xp in your Name... start /wait %systemdrive%\temp\change.vbs ECHO. ECHO. if exist "%systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\All Users.windows\*.*" xcopy "%systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Start Menu\Programs" "%systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\All Users.windows\Start Menu\Programs" /s /e /r /y /q if exist "%systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\All Users\*.*" xcopy "%systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Start Menu\Programs" "%systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs" /s /e /r /y /q Echo. ECHO. ECHO Deleting Temp Installation Files... RD /S /Q %systemdrive%\install RD /S /Q %systemdrive%\temp ECHO. ECHO Please wait as we Log you into your New Account Echo. shutdown.exe -l del "%systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Start Menu\Programs\startup\register.cmd" Ok now one question is.. see that All users.Windows !! now why do i get that ? i just want all users, also there is another folder that gets created by default, that is Administrator.(my computer name) PLEASE can someone help me wih this ! i dont want these folders to be created. OK, on to the topic, then i have a batch file that installs all the apps, then copies the register.cmd to the startup folder of the current user. I hope this makes some sense Bye, Jazz

Well i think it will also be good, if some one actually tries to incorporate the Longhorn Slate 4051 Theme, it looks so cool, i'm currently am using it via WindowsBlinds and its awesome, dont know how to convert this .wba theme to .msstyles though, Anyone got any creative ideas ? Bye, Jazz

Nobody like me !

Hmm, well considering the Stay on topic allegation, here i go. @likuidkewl, Well thinking optimisticily, will the script actually CLEAN the hdd ? in the sense completely wipe it off ? Or can it just create a stupid partition anywhere it finds the space.. (prefrrabaly at the start or end of the hdd) Also, after that, will the pc need to be restarted for the changes to take affect ? Well if things go as they should, then probably, what we can do is, ask the user if he wants to wipe the XP partition off then create a small 8mb partition at the start of the hdd, then create the winnt.sif there, then start the install, and this time delete the temp partition and reformat everything as C: The beauty of this can be that it'll all be automated thru batch files in DOS.. Any ideas or doubts ? Its just that i'm not comfortable with the idea of using 2 cd's just to install XP unattended, when all that can be done with just a dos image in the XPCD. I hope i make some sense here Bye, Jazz

a very small bump !

Well what do ya know...l to get more info on the PE builder goto www.911cd.net/forums its the home of bootable cd's.. all the info on bootable cd's than you'll ever find,. And yeeha, i'm a silver member at that site Bye, Jazz

Well i think that we both want the same thing... pls refer to here.. http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=18442 maybe we can do something about it.. Bye, Jazz

Well can i add this theme to my unattended installation ? Slate 4051 Can anyone verify, that this is the correct format, or i need style xp for this.. BYe, Jazz

Hmm, well how can we fit the XPCD in the PECD ? i dont think it'll fit.. and where i am, not many ppl have network shares.. so.. Is there a possibility for you to port this app to the DOS ? Bye, Jazz

Doh i dint know that one, so what should be done about this ?, i'm gonna assume that one partition has to be formatted to be used for XP, so maybe we can ask the user to enter the Partition to be formatted... or used for install.. NOTE :- i wanna ask the user to enter the partition and not the Drive letter, that means that for that first i'll have to to display the partition info via some program, maybe a paramater of fdisk, (that can show ntfs as well), or aefdisk or something like that... then we can format that using Oformat, so that it'll be optimised to be converted to NTFS later on.. But for this i'll have to assume that the user has already created the partitions... Is there any app that'll allow to create the partitions without actually rebooting ? Or maybe i ask too much ! I'm sure there will be some practical method to deal with this problem... Hey and what regarding the slow setup thingy ! is it true ? i think the only thing that should be affected is the first copy process, cuz after that XP will install its own kernel or something.... BYe, Jazz

Hmm looks good, but dosent that mean that first we have to copy the XP cd to the hdd, the boot from PE, then start the install ?? Well it can get timeconsuming in some cases... It would be very nice if sombody makes an applicatio of such aim for DOS, so that the no's of cd's required to install XP will be minimal, one in most cases Bye, Jazz

Hmm, well allanol , i'm not very good when it comes to searching at mskb articles, so could you help me by searching it ? or perhaps someone else know's how to achieve this ! Umm, Crusher, i use nset util for acceting input from teh user in xp, perhaps you can search for it..., but the pitfall is that it creates temp files.. so i dunno how much that'll affect you.. Find useful dos utils at Dos Utils Bye, Jazz

LOl, well i was actually thinking of a menu in DOS !!, so that it looks leet, or something like that ... Anyways, i dont like the idea of installing win xp from PE, it takes a lot of time... BTW, i got a question.. if i boot directy from cd and run win install, 1st time some temp files are copied, pc restarts, and then the setup starts.. But if i boot to dos and then start the setup then 1st time the files are copied, pc restarts, then again the files are copied somewhere, the pc restarts and the 3rd time the setup starts... is there any way so that i can prevent the 2 file copying processes ?? maybe by passing a switch to not to use temp files or something ! This can save a lot of time,. Bye, Jazz

Well thanks guys, now i almost know what i needed to know Well it does save it in the windows dir as $winnt$.inf or something like that ! Hmm, i htink that opens up many possibilities to customise the setup before hand so that you dont loose on the customisation aswell retain maxium unattended'ness during the install.. Well the app that i think will be best to capture user info is input.com from the creator of wbat, or even more, if some of you'll whos good at wbat, can even take some time out and make a small menu in wbat so that we get the options of modifing the winnt.sif in gui Well if not, then i still like doin it the leet way, Black box (CMD)... So, the things that can be customised BEFORE the setup starts are the User data, the cd-key, components to include or exclude.., and the apps that are gonna be installed during the GUI - Runonce, i hope you get the idea of where i'm goin so once the setup starts, no bothering at all, till everything is finally finished.... Now thats what i call a Unattended CD. I hope someone can come up with more creative ideas as of how to utilise this situation. Bye, Jazz

Well not exactly.. what i plan to do is boot form the boot disk (from my cd) then i'll run some batch file to detect the drive letter for my cd it';ll probably be c: as there will be no partition on the hdd.. SO, in this case i cannot write the winnt.sif to the hdd, if i would be doin that then this post would not be here, as i know that using the default switch for winnt i can use a winnt.sif on my floppy or hdd (any location thats gonna be permaent even after the reboot) but the case here is that i'm planning to create the winnt.sif on the ramdisk thats gonna be deleted along with the reboot... So what i wanted to know is that does windows actually copy the winnt.sif to the temporary files along with all the other setup files ? or does it still refer to it from the same location The advantage of this is that you get a sure shot method of customising the winnt.sif regardless of the partitions on the hdd... (unless you install using PE) I hope i make my post clear this time Bye, Jazz

Hi this is my first post on this forum, but i'm already quite familiar with the unattended part of xp, i've also made a sysprep image of my default installation but i still wanna achieve a perfect unattended xp install cd So the thing was that i already have my winnt.sif, but i wanna do something so that i can actually customise the winnt.sif before i start my setup.. Some idea regarding the situation i have is that, u can use a 98 boot disk that'll create the ramdisk for you, then using a siimple batch file and the echo command, you can quite customise the winnt.sif to your liking and use the winnt paramater to use this winnt.sif.. NOW the problem is that i dont have a floppy drive, and i wanna customise it in such a way so that it works even if there is no partition on the hdd The only doubt that i'm having is that if i make the winnt.sif in the ramdisk , then when the setup reboots , will it still recognise the winnt.sif file (as the ramdisk will no longer exist )?? or will it just go to a normal install ? If anyone has better ideas for this pls let me know Bye, Jazz

HI, thanks for the replies, i tried doin what u said , but i'm still getting the same error ! GM please let me know what the possible error could be ! Bye, Jazz

Hi, thanks for the quick reply... The utility that u've made is really very good and useful... it makes the task of maintaining unattended cd's a lot easier... the log file that you wanted is attached with this message... Thanks for looking into my problem personally.. Bye, Jazz XPCREATE.LOG

HI. i have created the cd as the guide but when i complete evrything i get a strange error during the gui setup.... i'm attaching the pic.. Bye, jazz